Exterior Wall support?

[Greg R]

I have a family room with 72" french door going out to a 14' x 14' 3 seasons room. I would like to open the wall up to the entire width of 14' to make the family room much larger. Can anyone help me as far as advise on supporting the exterior wall once the opening is made. It is a 2 story colonial with exterior bedroom wall above. I was contemplating a steel I-beam but I don't know if that is too extreme? Thanks in advance!

Greg

[tpluttig]

I would advise paying a structural engineer to have a look to determine your options. You don't want to make a mistake with something like that but there's no sense putting up more than you need to either. You may be able to find some one in the Yellow Pages that could do this for you for a very reasonable price. With all the new engineered wood products available today, I would suspect that you wouldn't need to start getting into steel headers.